Zen Cart Custom Shipping Surcharges

Custom solutions for charging more for shipping under specific conditions.

I have developed a number of these kinds of modifications over the years, and this page is designed to show you what's possible for your store.

Relevance: Zen Cart™ 1.5.x

Cost: Based on your requirements, starting at $300. This is not a plugin; it's custom software developed for your needs to your specifications. Before I can give you a final estimate, we need to discuss your needs.



Want something similar for your store? Great! Contact me with your requirements.

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I have a plugin called Shipping Surcharge, which adds a surcharge line item when shipping to specific zones. The solutions shown here are more complicated and involve specific logic for your business needs.

Custom shipping surcharges can be useful in a variety of situations:

• You need to build profitability into your shipping rates because product pricing is very competitive
• Your products are drop shipped, and your drop shippers charge more than what UPS or USPS quote for a specific weight
• Your products have handling charges associated with them.

Here are some examples of shipping surcharges I have built for customers.

Surcharges for specific Shipping Methods

This store adds configurable flat fees for shipping by air and to Canada.

These fees are not a separate line item like what zone-based Shipping Surcharge adds; they are built in to the quote returned from the shipper (UPS, USPS, etc.).

Here are the shipping rates on the checkout shipping page with the surcharges shown above:

And here are the rates when the surcharges are set to zero:

Notice how the air rates drop when the surcharges are set to zero.

Order Total Surcharges

I can add extra surcharges to the order total as required by your needs.

This store, which serves remote communities, has a fuel surcharge that is raised when gas prices are high.

Surcharges for dropshipping suppliers

Some of my clients who dropship have suppliers whose shipping rates are higher.
This store adds on a surcharge for items from a particular supplier (the name has been blurred out).



As in the first example, this fee is added to the rates returned by UPS. Here are the shipping rates with a $6 surcharge:



And here are the rates when the surcharge is set to $0:

Other Ideas

If shipping is a significant cost center for your business, and you are drop shipping, you may also want to consider tracking shipping costs.

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